


Hopena

by SBG



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Angst, First Kiss, Kidnapping, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-22
Updated: 2012-09-22
Packaged: 2017-11-14 19:59:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/518979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SBG/pseuds/SBG
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On a Sunday outing with Grace, Danny disappears without a trace.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sgflutegirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sgflutegirl/gifts).



> Title roughly translates to: consequences. This is kind of fulfilling the kidnapping and badassery prompt [sgflutegirl](http://archiveofourown.org/users/sgflutegirl) wanted, but got a smidge fluffy as well. Thanks to first reader LdyAnne and Space for final cleanup (Due to circumstances, I wrote this one super-fast, for me)!

H50H50H50

Days off were supposed to be well-earned blessings, chances to unwind from the stress of the job. For most people, that was true. For Steve McGarrett, he still couldn’t tolerate more than one free day consecutively without going a little stir-crazy, at least not if he hadn’t made plans with any of his team … friends to fill the days. Fortunately for him he usually did – he’d never truly expected the governor’s task force or its members to take such an emotional hold on him, but they fitted into his life seamlessly. Or maybe it was his life that molded to them. This weekend was an exception to the rule as far as having one of them with him. He was on his own and he didn’t like it. He’d grown accustomed to their presence, especially Danny’s.

Speaking of, if Danny could see him now he’d either laugh or rant his glorious ass off. An hour ago, bored out of his mind and resisting the urge to call someone over (well, not someone, Danny, but it was a Grace weekend and he couldn’t interrupt that), Steve had started rooting through the kitchen. He’d found and put on an apron – his mother’s, smelling of must and ancient grease and hidden in a drawer – and from there had begun rearranging the cabinets. He didn’t know why he’d started the project; it wasn’t like he actually used the kitchen that often, even during the off times he was home. However, plausible deniability had presented itself early on when he’d catalogued the block of knives and tested their sharpness.

An attack on home territory was not without precedent, so, really, he should have considered this before. The way Steve figured it, the kitchen utensils and appliances were only truly useful to him if they could also be made into weapons in short order. Therefore, there was no sense in having junk getting in the way of the practical items; the circumstances of a home invasion of mass proportions logically meant there wouldn’t be time to rifle through a drawer past the rubber scraper things and the circa 1985 cheese slicer with a thread too short to also work as a garrote. Criminals didn’t wait around for their targets to get armed. Ergo (he smirked as he again thought of Danny), Sunday afternoon was the perfect time to weaponize his kitchen.

He pulled a mysterious object from the drawer and wondered what its purpose was. It didn’t look like much of anything to him, the D-shaped metal slotted blades were not very sharp and the gripped handle a little flimsy. He wasn’t even sure what it was doing in the kitchen, but decided it’d double as a mock set of brass knuckles in a pinch. He put it, whatever it was, in the keep pile. Eyeballing the piles made him realize that his kitchen, as it turned out, was a fairly well stocked arsenal. He thought about ways he could introduce this method of organization to the rest of Five-0, as he wasn’t the only one who might incur a home invasion. Nothing he thought of right away would result in anything but mocking, though he suspected Kono would be amenable and maybe enthusiastic, so he stored the idea in the back of his brain for future mulling.

Steve absently wiped clean the now empty drawer before he began organizing the implements by order of potential destructiveness. He’d gotten to the apple corer (come on, that’d be the perfect instrument to gouge eyes out) when his phone vibrated and then let out a generic ring. It was somewhere at the bottom of the small toss pile, and each vibration set up a clatter of metal against wood and plastic. He had never been so glad for a phone call; the weapons project was almost complete and he had no idea what else he could do for the remainder of the day. It was only eleven in the morning. He didn’t bother looking at the screen, hoped it was the governor saving him with a nice, messy hostage situation, drug smuggling and/or terrorist plot to look into.

“Yeah, McGarrett,” Steve said.

_“Uh, Steve … McGarrett?” _a man’s voice soft and uncertain asked.__

__“Yes, speaking.” Steve rolled his eyes. Not the governor. He really ought to assign her a ringtone. “Who is this?”_ _

___“My name is Pali Kuoha. I’m the chief security officer at the Ho’omaluhia Botanical Garden in Kane‘ohe. I have a little girl here…”_ _ _

__“A little girl,” Steve said, interrupting the man and already on full alert._ _

__He only knew one girl. He knew she was with her father for the weekend, and that part of their time had been slotted to spend on a science assignment about plants. He also knew that there was no way, _no way_ he’d be getting a phone call from a complete stranger if something bad hadn’t happened. None of the scenarios that flashed through his head in rapid succession were positive. _ _

__“Grace Williams. What happened, is she okay?”_ _

__Steve moved for the door, on automatic pilot as he tore off the apron and flung it on the sofa. He grabbed his keys and left the house without a backward glance. He and Danny were friends, good friends, but he was not first on the call list for Grace and he knew it. It spiked his already mounting concern._ _

___“Yes, that’s the girl’s name. How did you know?”_ _ _

__“Is. She. Okay?”_ _

___“She’s fine, apparently she just got separated from her father.”_ _ _

__“I can assure you there’s no just about it,” Steve snapped, already at the truck and climbing in._ _

___“No, you’re right, sir. She’s very frightened. We tried calling her mother, but haven’t had any luck raising her and messages haven’t been returned yet. We’re also having a bit of a time locating her father. We thought she might have wandered from him and didn’t realize it. The girl said she didn’t know your number was in her phone or she would have called you. When she allowed us to look through her belongings and found you in her contact list, she insisted that I do so.”_ _ _

__Good girl._ _

__“What about Danny? You didn’t call him?”_ _

___“Ah, we did. Grace said she did, several times. He doesn’t answer, which is as much of a concern to us as it is to his daughter. There are a few locales within the park that are cell dead zones, so we’re hoping he’s in one of them,”_ Kuoha said, starting to sound rattled. _“We’ve got an extensive number of trails, as I’m sure you know, and a limited number of people to search them. I’m afraid there are also a number of places Mr. Williams could have injured himself.”__ _

__“Is Grace with you right now?” Steve asked. He started the truck and pulled onto the street. Danny would not, under any circumstances, lose contact with his daughter if he could help it. It simply would not happen. Adrenaline made his nerve endings sharp, fear a pit in his gut. “Please tell me you’re not talking about this in front of her.”_ _

___“No, she’s in another room with one of the visitor center volunteers. The security office is also located in the center,”_ Kuoha said. _“I didn’t want to excite her even further. When she was brought in by a patron, she was silent, but she’s gotten a bit more upset since then.”__ _

__“How long…?”_ _

___“We think she might have been out there alone for a while, but she couldn’t really give us a timeframe, except to say she and her father were here right as the gates opened for the day. She’s been here with us for half an hour.”_ _ _

__“Do me a favor, tell her I’m coming as fast as I can and keep her in your line of sight until I get there.” Steve didn’t know what was going on, but Grace could be in danger. That pit in his stomach grew icier at the thought. “Also, have someone keep trying Detective Williams’ phone and to get in touch with Rachel Edwards, Grace’s mother.”_ _

___“Detec … oh. Oh, I just put it together, your name and his.”_ Kuoha took a deep breath. _“This isn’t a simple case of a child wandering away from her father, is it? Should I call the police?”__ _

__“No, it’s probably not, and you did call the police by calling me. I’ll handle it after I talk to Grace myself. Look, I’ll be there as soon as I can, just, please, make sure Grace stays okay.”_ _

__Steve disconnected and for the next few minutes concentrated on breathing and navigating the thankfully moderate weekend traffic. He wasn’t in panic mode, not yet. There was a real possibility this wasn’t as bad as his gut was telling him it was. Danny could be there at the visitor’s center, with Grace, by the time Steve showed up, but instinct wasn’t something he ever ignored. His instinct screamed that Danny was not okay. He pulled to a stop at a red light and took the opportunity to thumb through his contacts. Real emergency or simple misunderstanding, there was one thing he could start with that wouldn’t cause undue problems._ _

___“Steve, what’s up, bruddah?”_ Chin Ho Kelly answered his phone on the second ring._ _

__“Hey, Chin. Sorry to interrupt your day off, but I need you to do something for me,” Steve said. “Can you get to HQ and track Danny’s cell?”_ _

___“Danny’s … what? What’s going on?”_ _ _

__A swell of appreciation rolled through him at the way Chin went from relaxed to alert, noticeable even over the phone. His team was the best, each of them in their own ways._ _

__“Not sure yet, maybe nothing. He’s not answering and Grace was apparently found alone at the botanical gardens over in Kane‘ohe. They were there together.”_ _

___“Say no more. I’ll call you,”_ Chin said and hung up._ _

__The rest of the drive was a blur, though he’d never been so glad for O’ahu’s small size before. He stayed in a slight daze right up to pulling through the gates and parking his car illegally in front of the visitor’s center. Steve got out and trotted through the doors, bit back disappointment that the first person he saw wasn’t his partner. And tempered further disappointment when Danny’s voice and the sweet lilt he got in it when he talked to or about Grace was also absent._ _

__“You must be Commander McGarrett,” a short, pleasant-faced woman behind the help desk said. At his nod, she ushered him closer, then pointed down a short hallway. “They’re waiting for you back there.”_ _

___“Mahalo,”_ Steve murmured as he walked briskly, eyes flicking at each open door in search of Danny’s girl._ _

__He found her and a stout, short man he took to be Kuoha in a small room at the very end of the hall. Before Steve could utter a word, a whirlwind of pink and green raced toward him, small arms wrapped around his stomach and constricted with surprising strength. His hands naturally came up and landed on Grace’s shoulders. He squeezed gently, then pulled her arms free just so he had room to crouch and give her a decent hug._ _

__“Steve,” Grace said, forehead pressed against his right collarbone. She was hot, from the crying or confusion, the distress fairly radiating from her. “I don’t know where my daddy is.”_ _

__Even if Grace had been a total stranger to him, the plaintive note in her voice would have cut him to the quick and made him bleed all over the floor. Any question that this was an honest accident flew out the window. He reactively held her tighter and caught Kuoha’s troubled eyes as he stood over them. Steve had to figure this sort of thing was far outside the norm for what security usually dealt with out here. He nodded at the man, who nodded back but didn’t look any less worried._ _

__“It’s okay, Gracie. It’s going to be all right,” Steve said into her hair. She smelled like coconut and strawberries, sun block and shampoo. He hoped like hell he wasn’t lying to her. He broke the hug, held her by the biceps so he could look her in the eyes. “Honey, can you tell me what you were doing when you noticed Danno was gone?”_ _

__Her eyes, big naturally, widened further and filled with tears. She swallowed and stared at him until he gave her a gentle shake. “Skipping,” she said, and it was only then he noticed how thick her voice was, from old tears and new._ _

__“Skipping?”_ _

__Grace nodded and took a deep breath, said more words than Steve had ever heard her say in one sitting._ _

__“I was going faster than Danno could walk, and I thought he was going to shout for me to stop the way he always does so I don’t get too far ahead. But he never did. I stopped anyway, because there was a corner and I didn’t want to l-lose him, but I turned around and he wasn’t there anymore.”_ _

__Steve frowned, but schooled his features at Grace’s reaction to that. He smiled instead, or tried to. This wasn’t right and all three occupants of the room knew it by now. Usually in scenarios like Grace described, it was the _child_ who went missing, not the adult. Funny how the distinction didn’t him give any comfort, not even a little._ _

__“Good. Okay.” Steve rubbed his thumbs against Grace’s small arms. “Can you think real hard for me and tell me if you saw or heard anything before or after that?”_ _

__“Like what?”_ _

__“Anything, sweetheart. Anything that looked or sounded like it shouldn’t have been there.”_ _

__Grace chewed on her lower lip and for a second she looked so much like her father instead of her mother. Steve almost laughed because Danny had passed along his detective face, but there was nothing funny here._ _

__“I don’t … nothing. I don’t know. There was just the two of us. I’m sorry.”_ _

__“It’s okay, you didn’t know to look,” Steve said and wondered if later when she was calmer she’d remember something. “You were just having a fun day with your dad, yeah?”_ _

__Tears ran wet down her cheeks, unchecked now. Steve could barely stand it. No wonder Danny turned into a giant ball of mush at the mere mention of Grace. Steve barely knew her, really, and he wanted to move mountains to bring her dad back to her. Selfishly, he tossed himself into the mix. He wanted to bring Danny back to him too. His team members were all special to him, but maybe because he spent the most time with Danny, Danny was _more_ special. Just more everything, if he were going to be truthful. He could blame his own racing heart on a sympathetic reaction to Grace’s anguish, but he had trained to drum that kind of emotional response down. _ _

__It wasn’t Grace’s distress he was feeling._ _

__“Did Daddy leave me like Uncle Matt did?” Grace asked, broken and hoarse._ _

__“Oh, honey, no,” Steve said, perhaps too harshly. Danny was nothing like Matt. “Listen to me. Your Danno would never, ever do that to you. Not in a million years.”_ _

__“But he’s gone.”_ _

__“Not because he wanted to be. Not on purpose. Never that.”_ _

__Steve had no answers to soothe Grace, and it was killing him. He would not make promises he couldn’t keep, though he had to bite them back. He needed to take action; too much time had already passed between Danny vanishing and when he had gotten the call. He knew action was what was needed, yet also knew he had to be there for Grace until they could track Rachel down. He gathered Grace back up, her arms tight around his neck, and stood with her. He cupped one hand at the back of her head, the other arm encircled her torso completely. He willed her trembling to stop, but knew it wouldn’t for some time yet. She was so scared. Steve glanced at Kuoha._ _

__“Whatever you need, Commander McGarrett,” Kuoha said quietly._ _

__What Steve needed was answers as to what exactly had happened to Danny and why. What he needed was Danny back, safe and in one piece. For Grace, and for all of them._ _

____

H50H50H50

The air was moist and hot, not unlike the way it always was in the supposed tropical paradise in which he found himself living but also not like it at all. It felt too close, was worse, suffocating to the point he honestly thought he’d stop being able to breathe in short order. The thought of that alone made him gasp faster, made his respirations increase as panic set in. He opened his eyes to pitch black, which only made him breathe harder, faster and what little overheated air he was getting made his lungs burn. There was a bag, or something, covering his head.

Deep down, instinct told him that he needed to calm himself, get his brain online. He took a shallow, shaky breath, then another and another, until he was able to piece together what was happening. His head felt muzzy, too thick and wrong, which explained why it was so difficult to think. He might have been doped. Other side effects presented, then, or he became aware of them. A horrible taste of wet chalk in his mouth, pounding headache, rolling stomach were all likely side effects of drugs. He worked hard to push those things aside, focus on breathing, shallowly and through his mouth. 

After a minute or two, the whoosh of blood in his ears settled and he could hone in better on the other sounds surrounding him. Loud traffic, the hum of tires on the road. His left ear was pressed to the floor, he felt the vibration of the vehicle as it drove. It was impossible to tell how fast it was being driven, though his imagination had it speeding through the streets. His nose tickled against the dark cloth covering his face. He sniffed to avoid sneezing and detected hints of rubber and dust beyond the sweat rolling off of him in the heat. His hands were restrained behind him. Okay, so, wherever he was, he didn’t want to be there. That was a given. He couldn’t remember. His brain wouldn’t work yet. Not yet. Think, think, he had to think.

He realized his arms were trapped behind him and instantly struggled at the binding on his wrists, pulled and tugged, his body reacting faster than his sluggish mind could. His brain only told him it was futile after sharp pain bit into his skin. He went limp, figured out that while his hands were bound his legs were free. He shuffled around a bit, got himself into a seated position after what seemed like extraordinary effort. Upright, his head pounded harder and the nausea returned in full force. 

He swallowed a few times, got the queasiness under control. He tried to remember anything that could explain where he was and how he’d gotten there. Beneath him, he felt corrugation, like a cardboard box, but not. Harder, rough and uncomfortable grooves biting into his butt. Truck. No, enclosed space, it was a cargo van.

None of that told him what he wanted to know. 

He strained again at the wrist restraints, as if he’d somehow be able to break free this time. Plastic cuffs, he finally figured out as they dug deep into him, not rope or metal. He should be able to remember how he’d come to be trussed up in the back of a moving vehicle. He couldn’t even remember what day … what … oh, shit, all of a sudden he saw an image of a little girl, hair flowing as she ran and skipped ahead of him. The memory of her laughter rang in his ears, louder than the damned white noise surrounding him. It wasn’t a random little girl. It was his weekend. She … oh, _shit_. He let out a muffled groan. 

That was his girl. His. Bile rose in the back of Danny’s throat as that new knowledge worsened his already existing nausea. He could not let himself vomit here. If she was there with him, she needed him to be strong. He took several breaths, all of them shaky. He opened his mouth, not to puke, but to call for her. He stopped before he did, though, knowing the panic would be apparent in his voice, and not knowing if he was being monitored. If Grace was with him, he didn’t want to scare her any more than she had to be terrified already. And, if by some miracle they hadn’t noticed he was with his daughter and hadn’t taken her, then they, whoever they were, didn’t need the hint at how to manipulate him. It was probably obvious anyway, but he in no way wanted to add fuel to that fire.

He went absolutely still and concentrated on sounds. After a moment, he relaxed slightly. He couldn’t hear any signs of a child in distress near him. That could mean she was bound and gagged, but Danny hoped like hell that he couldn’t hear her because she simply wasn’t there, that they hadn’t seen her or taken her. He scooted backwards until he hit a wall, rubbed the back of his head against it in an attempt to dislodge the hood. 

It should have slipped free easily, he thought, but he couldn’t get the edge of it past his chin. He thought there was elastic or a tie or something. He couldn’t help the groan of frustration, though he managed to swallow it before it morphed into something more embarrassing. What he felt inside was more embarrassing. It was the combination of drugs and uncertainty about Gracie, he knew this, but Danny felt sure he was about to fall into pieces right there. 

Before he could do anything – fall apart or devise a way to get the damned hood off of his head – the van stopped moving and the engine cut off. He should have anticipated it, noticed the slowing of the vehicle, the rougher road bouncing him along and what that meant. He was too fuzzy, yet, distracted and worried sick to death about Grace, what could have happened to his Gracie. The engine ticked a few times, metallic pings, and then muffled voices, male, saying words he hadn’t a prayer of understanding. The crunch of gravel as they walked. To the back of the van, Danny realized, and he hauled ass in that direction, clumsy and painful. 

He might be down, but he was not out. He had piss-all of a chance, hands tied, eyes compromised. He wasn’t going to lie there and let them have him. Hell, no, oh, there. There, he heard where they were. He focused in on the sound of the door handle scraping, felt his way along the back of the van until he was pretty sure he was in the right spot. He kicked his legs as the doors creaked open, caught something hard and unyielding with his feet, heard with no small amount of satisfaction the grunt of one of his captors, the muttered curses.

Hands yanked him up and out, but he wouldn’t yield. He kicked and twisted and broke free, long enough to get his feet under him and run. One step, two. On the third, the hands were back, and then something sharper. Pinprick. Fuck. _Fuck this shit_ , Danny thought, and _Grace, Grace_ as lassitude crept through his veins and pulled him into a daze first, and then nothingness.

H50H50H50

He itched. Somewhere just below the surface of the skin, Steve burned with the need to move, do something. Do everything, all at once. He was the living and breathing definition of conflicted. He needed to be out there, searching alongside HPD and Kono for any tiny thread of evidence as to what happened to Danny. He needed to be interviewing possible witnesses with Chin. He needed to see the security feeds for himself, search every vehicle on the grounds by himself if he had to.

But he also needed to be right where he was, keeping himself calm and together for the sake of a little girl who’d lost her daddy while only twenty steps away from him. 

Chin had called twenty minutes in, from HQ, with the news that Danny’s phone was still somewhere in the four hundred acre park, but it was impossible to pinpoint an exact location. Kuoha had provided the rough area Grace and Danny had been, and that was the starting point in a grid search, all of which he’d dictated to Chin so he could coordinate when he arrived at the garden. 

He was in command mode, until Grace’s reaction had made him realize he couldn’t be the task force leader quite yet. Steve had made a mistake in fielding that phone call with Grace wrapped in his arms like she belonged there and he had known in that moment he couldn’t leave her, couldn’t even discuss the details while she was with him. She’d heard the tension in his voice and started sobbing again, so long and so hard that he honestly had thought she was going to break right there in his embrace. 

That idea terrified the shit out of him on multiple levels, not the least of which was upsetting Danny when he found out Steve broke his daughter (because there was no doubt in his mind they’d get Danny back, no room for doubt), so he had hunkered down with Grace in his arms and simply held on. She’d worn herself out a good hour ago, fallen into a limp, fitful sleep. And even after that, Steve hadn’t been able to think about anything regarding Danny. He concentrated on Grace, and Grace alone. 

Steve blinked a few times, eyes bleary from studying the detailed map of the entire park Kuoha had left with him. He had it memorized by now, the one thing he had allowed himself to do. He leaned his head back against the wall and shut his own eyes. He sat in the same small room he’d found Grace in hours ago now, both uncomfortable with the duty and unwilling to give it up at the same time, while she slept with her face pressed against his shoulder. 

Any idea he had of setting her down and allowing a stranger to watch over her so he could go search for Danny died a quick death before it ever completely formed. Steve was not going to be responsible for her waking up to find herself left yet again by someone she trusted. He didn’t believe for one minute that Danny had done so willingly, but he also knew in her child’s mind that wasn’t a distinction she could fully make. 

He just couldn’t chance doing that to her, even if it was killing him not knowing what was going on with the search so far. Steve’s status as a benchwarmer was temporary, and that helped keep him calm. It was secondary to this little creature folded across his lap, too small for this kind of trauma. Danny would be fine; he had to be. Knowing, _believing_ , it didn’t make his heart ache any less for Grace. The other ache in his heart, the one there for his own selfish reasons, happened to coincide with the start of a tremendous headache. He didn’t have time for pain, though, of any kind.

Instead of reaching to rub at his temples, Steve’s hand found one of Grace’s pigtails and he ran his fingers through the smooth strands gently. Grace snuffled and shifted and Steve dropped the pigtail and just cupped the back of her head. It still amazed him that she could be comfortable enough around him to sleep so deeply.

“Oh, you stayed with her.”

The voice startled Steve, as did the fact that someone had been able to approach him without him hearing or noticing. He knew it was Rachel without opening his eyes, her accent and the scent of her perfume belatedly hitting his nose told him that. He looked at her, and her expression was unreadable to him. She was alone, no husband at her side. 

“I’d expected you’d be out there, leading the charge,” Rachel said, voice still very soft, the tenor of someone who knew what it was to hold a conversation near a sleeping child. She sat in a chair next to Grace, her hand reaching out to touch the girl’s shoulder. She had yet to look at Steve directly. “Doing what you do.”

“I couldn’t leave her alone,” Steve whispered. “I couldn’t do that to her after the day she’s had. I couldn’t do it to Danny, for that matter. Grace is everything to him.”

Grace’s weight seemed to increase at that. He was holding Danny’s world, and if Grace was Danny’s world, then she was, at the moment, also Steve’s.

Rachel turned to him at last, her unreadable face turned into something else, sharpened like she’d just figured out the pivotal crossword clue. For a blink or two she looked at Steve before her expression changed yet again, to worry tempered with anger and dread. It was impossible to classify it; the look was too complicated. 

“I’m sorry it took so long. I hadn’t thought I needed to have my phone on.”

“It’s okay.” Steve recognized the nervous energy for what it was. “You’re here now. Grace is all right.”

“She’s probably not,” Rachel said. 

Rachel stared at Grace as if the girl might vanish in front of her eyes, and Steve couldn’t blame her for that. They were lucky this hadn’t been worse. The thought of Danny and Grace both being gone wasn’t one he wanted in his head even for the second it was. He hoped that Danny, wherever he was, knew that Grace was safe.

“Have you … is Danny?” Rachel stuttered in what seemed an uncharacteristic inability to string a sentence together.

He watched as Rachel focused on Grace with her eyes while the rest of her seemed frazzled. Steve understood with sudden clarity then, the love she still had for Danny buried beneath all of their hurt feelings and angry phone calls. That much animosity didn’t happen in a vacuum and he wondered how much of that love remained, how strong it was. If it was returned. A part of him that had no right resented the connection Rachel still had with Danny, and Steve couldn’t take the time to think about that. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to; he was only sure that it was misplaced and ill-timed resentment.

“Don’t know. I didn’t want to upset Grace any more than she’d already been,” Steve said with a shake of his head, except he did know his team would have told him if there was a positive lead. No news was bad news in this particular case. “I asked them not to disturb us.”

“Of course. Right.” Rachel rubbed Grace’s shoulder, brushed the girl’s hair back, frowned slightly at the lack of response.

“She cried herself to sleep. She’s drained.”

“Oh God. This is … this … I should have been here. I, just, thank you for staying with her.”

“Hey,” Steve said. He touched Rachel’s forearm. “She’s okay. She’ll be okay because Danny will be okay. We’ll keep you informed, Rachel. The minute we find him, you have to know I will call you and Grace.”

“Thank you,” Rachel said with a wobbly smile. “It’s funny how I’m not even married to him anymore, yet it’s still like taking a punch.”

Steve nodded and had an irrational desire to get Rachel out of there, away from him. He supposed it was jealousy.

Grace half woke up when Steve stood with her still in his arms, but only mumbled a few times and resumed her pose with face against his shoulder. He really did want to give Rachel and Grace both some peace of mind, but moreover he wanted to get with Chin and Kono and see what they had so far. It was early yet, he thought with some desperation, there was still a good chance of getting Danny back unscathed. 

Except the little fact that Steve couldn’t know that at all, had absolutely no clue who might have taken his partner or if they wanted Danny alive. For all he knew, Kono and Chin were finding Danny’s body at the bottom of a ravine as he stood there. His stomach tightened, knotted. He tried to keep that reaction off of his face, but by the way Rachel gasped and turned from him, he’d failed, and knew her thoughts must have run along similar lines.

He followed Rachel out, exchanged more words he hoped were reassuring and knew couldn’t possibly be. He loaded Grace into the backseat of Rachel’s fancy car, horrified that he was as glad to be relieved of the duty as he also felt inexplicably strange to not have hold of her anymore. Rachel had slid into the other side of the backseat to wrangle the seatbelt into place. He helped as best he could, extended the strap toward her and backed out at the sound of the click. Gracie’s head and shoulders nodded toward him. He resisted righting her. He also resisted kissing her forehead. Even in sleep, her face looked wrecked. Rachel backed out and shut the back door with a quiet snick. Steve was about to follow suit, when a small, hot hand grabbed his wrist. 

“Uncle Steve?” Grace said, words sleepy and thick.

Uncle. Jesus, that was a first and warmth spread through him at the term’s use. Steve shot a look at Rachel, who seemed stiff and ill at ease, though he couldn’t fathom why. He returned his attention to Grace, who stared at him without blinking. Her eyes were deep with sadness too old for someone so young and it felt like a physical blow.

“Yeah, Gracie?”

“Find my daddy.”

“You know I will do my very best, sweetheart.”

The smile he got for that made his heart and head hurt even worse. Then he made himself pull from Grace’s grasp, shut the door and watched the car pull away from him. Steve allowed himself only the amount of time it took for the taillights of the car to flash red at the parking lot exit and then wink off as Rachel navigated onto the road. He’d come perilously close to making a promise there, and though in his gut he could swear they’d find Danny and he’d be okay, that wasn’t something ever spoken to family. No promises, ever, because broken promises were unforgivable. He couldn’t take the thought of Grace hating him, and it was so bizarre how one afternoon with her made him feel so territorial. 

All that action he’d been itching for was something he could now take. Chin had set up one of the small conference rooms as a witness interview station, but Steve had watched the stream of people trickle out a long time ago. He’d already suspected there couldn’t have been anyone in the vicinity while Danny was being taken (not killed, not), for the fact it took time for anyone to find Grace. But someone, somewhere had to have seen something they could use. 

With Grace no longer his most pressing concern, Steve automatically started rolling through a mental list of Five-0’s past cases. He wouldn’t waste time on self-recrimination for being unable to do so while he had Danny’s daughter sobbing into his shirt. Too much time had lapsed already to spend on that. He considered anyone that might have the means to orchestrate a kidnapping in broad daylight, and couldn’t come up with anyone he wasn’t positive was locked up or dead. They’d have to look into Danny’s work back in Newark as well. He felt a swell of pride when he considered his partner’s stellar solve rate, as if he had anything to do with it. The mental listwork wasn’t enough doing. He had to do something. He pulled out his phone.

“Steve.”

He turned and found Chin Ho Kelly standing behind him, appearing stoic as ever except for darkness in his eyes.

“Chin,” he said. “Sitrep.”

“Here.” Chin handed Steve the earwig he’d refused before, knowing it would have been even more torturous to sit and do nothing while hearing the chatter. “Noticed when Rachel showed up. Figured you’d want an update.”

“Yeah, so, where are we in the investigation?”

“Not far enough, _brah_.” 

No, because far enough would mean Danny would be there, bitching at Steve for some made-up offense. It felt like Danny had been gone for days, not hours, which was faintly ridiculous, but Steve hadn’t seen or spoken to Danny since Friday.

“Kono just found Danny’s phone, about a quarter of a mile from the estimated location Grace and Danny were when she noticed he was gone.”

“Just the phone?”

“Just the phone. Screen was broken, but it was left on and wasn’t hidden.”

“So, whoever took Danny either didn’t care or they were sloppy.”

“We’re not sure he was even taken yet, Steve.”

“You believe that?” Steve barked, ran his hands down his face. “You believe for a second that Danny’s out there right now, that we’ll find him with, I dunno, a broken leg or something?”

The garden’s terrain wasn’t that rough. 

“No. I believe if Danny had an accident, he would have made noise.” Chin smiled, wistful. “A lot of noise. Grace would have heard it, seen it.”

“Right. And people don’t disappear without a trace. It doesn’t happen. The phone aside, nothing feels sloppy about this to me. It was planned, Chin, and executed flawlessly. Someone had to know Danny was going to be here, and they had to know Grace would be with him.”

Chin’s lips thinned into a line. 

“But they didn’t take her. Why?”

“Good question. They should have. Think about it. With Grace, they’d have the perfect leverage against Danny,” Steve said, and it made him sick to even say it.

“If they needed leverage.” Chin didn’t sound happy suggesting that. “Steve, we’ve also got to consider this might not have been a kidnapping.”

Fuck that. No. Steve did not have to consider that, not yet. It was too early to think like that (always would be) and they basically knew nothing.

“He’s alive until proven otherwise, Chin.” 

“Okay,” Chin said, shoulders slumping a little, as if he’d needed Steve to say it. “Okay, yeah.”

“Anything else I need to know?”

“All cars in the parking lot are accounted for – including Danny’s. All appear on the feed coming in, and no one was let in after Grace was found. No one was let out, either.”

That was a credit to Kuoha, who’d shut the garden down as a precaution within a few minutes of hearing Grace’s story. Obviously their perps hadn’t driven Danny out, or at least not right through the front gates. Steve refused to give credence to the idea that Danny hadn’t been kidnapped, that he was already dead. It was a cliché, but he thought he’d feel it if his partner had done something stupid like up and die on him. 

“Then there’s another way out of here.” Steve could see the map in his mind’s eye, saw several possibilities. “We’re going to find it and we’re going to find Danny. We’re going to focus on that and let HPD handle the rest of the grounds search. Get Kono, yeah?”

The three remaining members of Five-0 with full means and immunity. No criminal stood a chance at stopping them from putting their _ohana_ back together.


	2. Chapter 2

H50H50H50

Danny had no idea how long he’d been there or where there was for that matter. He didn’t know if the assholes who grabbed him while he was _with his daughter_ were going to show up at some point, though he assumed they would. He didn’t know if his little girl was there somewhere, tied to a chair with a hood over her head just like he was, but the very idea enraged him into trying to break free over and over again despite the same result each time – failure. 

He didn’t know how he was going to get out of this, or how much blood now oozed from his wrists where the plastic zip ties dug into his skin and would not yield no matter how he battled them. He didn’t know how many days a human body could go without water (Steve would pull that factoid out and sound like everyone should have this basic knowledge at the tip of his brain). The number of times he had passed out eluded him, he only knew there were multiple occasions and this went hand in hand with the inability to gauge time. What it all boiled down to was that he didn’t know a large number of things. 

The few things he did know weren’t great. He knew his head throbbed and every muscle in his body ached dully from being restrained in one position, and maybe from whatever they’d pumped into his bloodstream more than once. He knew his throat was parched and swollen and that he was tiptoeing at the edge of panic every time he tried to take a deep, cleansing breath and only took in oxygen tainted with his own carbon dioxide exhalations. His lungs strained, his heart whooshed blood through his veins, and there was an intermittent, faint _ping!_ from somewhere distant. 

He knew he was in some pretty serious shit.

Leaving him isolated was a tactic to break him down. That part was easy to figure out, considering how strung out he already felt. The reason why was less simple to pinpoint. He couldn’t think of anyone with a grudge, not off the top of his addled head. Maybe if he were at HQ with the rest of his team, Danny could finger a suspect. He laughed because if he were there with them, he would not be here now. It was truly hilarious. The sound of his laughter was loud but hoarse. It bounced off the walls. He figured he was in a small room, but then again it could be that he was suffocating slowly that merely gave the illusion of the world collapsing in on him. Fuck. No, he had to breathe, not panic. He was a trained police officer. He could not let them win so easily. 

Amazing, though, how all the training in the world couldn’t have ever prepared him for what it was to endure the endless hours of barely getting enough oxygen into his blood. In his hazy thought processes, he contemplated whether or not even Navy SEAL training would, if Danny was somehow just not strong enough. Random, misplaced thoughts didn’t matter, except everything somehow seemed random. Hypoxia was a real threat, and he suspected his captors knew it and were using it, knew it and wanted him to die slowly and painfully, or were too stupid to know what they were doing and Danny would be a hot mess before they deigned to join him. He didn’t know why he was here, so couldn’t choose between the three. 

The sound of a door opening surprised Danny out of a stupor he hadn’t even had the presence of mind to know he’d slipped into. Automatically, he tried to straighten, make himself look bigger or at least not as beaten down. It was disconcerting to not have the vaguest clue if it did any good for his cause. The darkness was starting to get to him almost as much as the tainted air.

“Who … ?” he said, but his tongue was too thick in his too dry mouth for anything else to come out. He wasn’t even entirely sure what he had meant to ask.

He got no answer, should have known he wouldn’t. He tensed when rough hands pawed at his shoulders and neck. The hood was lifted, not off, but enough to free his nose and mouth. Air. Air, amazing air was all he knew, even if it smelled like dust and fear. Danny sucked it into his lungs, instinct winning over anything. The rush of it in his blood, his brain, was exhilarating and overwhelming. He coughed harshly, yet tried to keep breathing it in. A strong hand grabbed the back of his head and yanked back. His throat closed off, just for a moment, but he’d gotten air. 

“You fuckers,” Danny said, choking all the while. There were two of them, but there had to have been more before. Two he could handle, he could. “I hope you believe in some higher power, because you’re going to need…”

His voice was distorted. He sounded like that version of Quasimodo Anthony Hopkins did, the one that had freaked him out when he was, like, five, and the memory was obscure even for him. Something unyielding pressed against his lips, kept him from carrying through with an unintelligible and impotent threat. He couldn’t turn away, jerked in his seat when cool liquid touched his chapped lips. Instinct took over with this as well, and he drank several swallows before the water bottle was pulled away. He started laughing as he thought in the Quasimodo voice, _she gave me water, she gave me water…_ and oh, shit, they were going to break him easily, because they were already so close and Grace, Gracie couldn’t be here.

“Grace.” 

The name slipped out and he couldn’t take it back. It spurred him on. He wasn’t going to sit there, docile and cooperative. Danny jerked his forearms up, strained against the strong bindings. Tried to kick his legs out, then bucked his butt and legs off of the chair. 

“You assholes, I will fucking kill you.”

As threats went, it _sounded_ empty even to him, but he meant it. Danny would get a legendary fiftieth wind and do severe, lethal harm to anyone who had his little girl tied up like some animal in another room. The image that popped into his head scared the everloving shit out of him, and enraged him further. He bucked and swore, and though he quickly grew tired, he kept it up as long as he could.

“Not ready yet,” a voice said, but not to him or in response to what Danny had just said. It didn’t sound right, modulated. Altered so it couldn’t be recognized. “Not quite.”

The hand holding his head let go and Danny’s neck went limp like a noodle, unable to keep it up. His world, still dark as pitch, spun. It felt like he was spiraling, falling into a deep, dark hole. Drugged again? He didn’t know. He fought the urge to puke up what little water he’d taken in, but felt none of the drowsiness that had claimed him before. There were several scraping sounds. The door shutting, he realized, and he was alone again with only his vertigo, nausea and monstrous headache for company. Not knowing what they wanted from him was the worst of it, he thought, and they wanted something or he’d be dead. If they’d come out and given an ultimatum, he’d still be on unequal footing but he’d feel better about it. 

Danny went back to drifting. Time became even more immeasurable after that, as Danny slipped in and out despite finally, finally being able to breathe. The ragged sound of his own inhalations and exhalations started to sound foreign, like it wasn’t him there, heaving breaths in case they were taken from him again. The _ping!_ that had seemed random developed a pattern, and the rhythm of it mocked him. It was out there and he was not, each well-placed _ping!_ said. It was crazy to think so, and he knew the noises weren’t sentient. The _ping!_ was just a _ping!_ , not a taunting son of a bitch he was jealous of for being out there and not in here. 

Danny tried, so hard, to keep his brain working at even half capacity during those moments he was fairly sure he was maybe mostly conscious, but exhaustion and thirst and dull fear were winning bit by every little bit.

The next visit from his unfriendly abductors was essentially the same as the first. And so was the one after that and the one after that, except sometimes there was rough handling and a few punches to non-vital parts of his anatomy. It carried on until Danny couldn’t tell one visit from another. Worse, he couldn’t tell when he was alone and when someone was there manhandling his noggin inside and out without a word directly to him, couldn’t remember why he needed to fight them so hard, though he had hazy thoughts of brown hair, sparkling eyes and a smile that cut through him every time he saw it; bits of a face, maybe not the same one, but never a whole.

Then, once, they came and Danny couldn’t do it anymore. He simply could not fight them with his futile words and useless attempts to free himself. He couldn’t even try. He heard the telltale scrape of the door and stayed slumped, head lolling. He felt detached as his head was tilted back again. They gave him water, most of it ended up down the front of his T-shirt. One of them walked around him, shark-like, the swish of fabric and slight squeak of a shoe giving him away.

“Detective Williams,” that one said from in front of him, ceased the circling. It was the same odd, mechanical voice as before. “We want you to know that this can be done the easy way or the hard way. It’s completely up to you. Do you understand?”

Not really, to be honest, and it already seemed like the hard way to him. Danny felt too tired, too hungry and too brain-fuzzy. The guy holding his head released him. He let his head fall to the left, which they apparently took as assent. Danny was just with it enough to know in that instant that they were morons. Compliance was one thing, incoherence another. Grade school logic. _Ping!_ went that _ping!_ , louder with the door open.

“Good. You need to tell us everything you know about the Cali drug cartel.”

Okay, that … what?

“Whu … what?” 

“We know they’ve moved operations off of Hawai’i for now, thanks to you. Do you know if they’re still stateside?”

“What?” Danny mumbled again.

“Cartel, Detective Williams, the one that now knows how close they were to a takedown.”

Drugs? They drugged him before. How would he know where their supplier was? Not that kind of drug, maybe. He shook his head to try to clear it, but all it got him was a sickening bout of dizziness. He had to hiccup a few times to get his stomach under some kind of control. None of this was making sense, but he didn’t know if it was the exhaustion or thirst or his brain was broken. They started to sound like the adult voices on a Charlie Brown cartoon. Wah wah wah. 

Until.

“Let’s try it a different way. It’s been established that your brother’s working for them. Where is your brother Matthew’s current whereabouts?”

Just like that, Danny found a spark. It clicked all of a sudden, and where there had been confusion there was some semblance of clarity. He fumbled around in the chair, not that he could actually move, but the action somehow helped ground him. His eyes were still covered, but he glared to where he thought the voice had come from. The joke was on them, because he still didn’t know where Matty was. He had no fucking clue and had to live with the aching worry of what might happen or had already happened to his brother every day of his life.

“Huh, it’s you,” Danny said, sounding horrible, shaky and slurred. “I told you already, you miserable little pukes, I don’t know anything.”

“Hard way it is. For you, anyway.”

His head was grabbed again, tilted back while his shoulders were held. As if he had any real energy to fight. Danny heard the tear of Velcro, a clink of glass, the slide of plastic against metal and then the bastard had his left hand in a tight hold. He started to panic.

“No, don’t give me that.” Danny tried, one last effort, to pull away. “No.”

The sharp prick of the needle into the vein in his hand was the only reply he got. It didn’t take long, as stressed as he was physically, for things to get so weird that sentient _pings!_ no longer seemed too far out there.

H50H50H50

The hole in Steve’s gut was figurative, but as far as he was concerned it felt real. For the life of him, he didn’t know what to do and he missed his damned partner more than he would have thought possible. He’d hated Danny instantly, liked him hesitantly and now he couldn’t imagine doing this job without the whirling maelstrom that was Danny Williams at his side.

A noise from outside startled him. A screech of tires, a strident shout, whatever. He jerked, realized he’d been sitting there staring into space. He looked at his right hand, which had stopped with the phone’s receiver halfway back to its cradle. Judging by the way the muscles of his fingers cramped, he’d sat that way for quite some time. The LED screen flashed at him to hang up already. He hated having to answer those calls, never sure how to handle Rachel’s frustration, Grace’s grief and his own irrational irritation at Rachel’s persistence. His eyes burned and watered all of a sudden, mostly from not blinking. He didn’t think he’d gotten more than two hours of sleep since Sunday morning. Every time he closed his eyes, he imagined horrible, unspeakable things being done to Danny. His brain truly _was_ a miserable place sometimes.

“Rachel again?” Kono asked quietly from the door.

“Yeah,” Steve said. He put the phone down and took a deep breath. “She didn’t think Grace should be in school yet this morning. I could hear her crying in the background.”

Kono blanched, looking suddenly a decade older, faded. 

Steve smiled at her, a pitiful attempt at an apology. No one needed to be reminded about what Danny’s little girl was going through, that they were not the only or even the most important people affected by Danny being gone. Not knowing the specific time on Sunday Danny had been taken but assuming it had been mid-morning, they were rapidly approaching the forty-eight hour mark. 

Forty-some hours and Steve saw the dread that they were never going to find Danny or they’d only find him dead in Chin and Kono’s eyes at a near constant rate now. He couldn’t blame them for thinking the exact same things that ran through his own head in a loop right alongside thoughts of Grace, of the promise he hadn’t made her but wanted to fulfill anyway. He knew they, like him, weren’t anywhere near the acceptance stage. Statistically, though, it was getting grimmer and sometimes it sucked knowing the odds.

It would have been a miracle if Steve hadn’t ever lost anyone he served with, considering the number of years he actively served and the places in which he did. He wouldn’t lie and say this felt the same; it didn’t. Danny wasn’t the same as anyone he’d ever known in his life. But he could take a loss again, if he had to. The thing was, he just didn’t want to. He wasn’t going to.

“You got something?” Steve asked, moving from behind his desk.

“No.” Kono chewed her lip for a second. “No, I just saw … you okay?”

“I’d be better if we had some damned idea where Danny was.”

In all his years with Naval Intelligence, he’d never seen anything like it. The lack of demands signified it wasn’t a typical kidnapping. The lack of any leads at all had Steve on edge. The whole thing did, primarily because it wasn’t possible for any crime to be committed without evidence. He was starting to feel like the butt of an if-a-tree-falls joke, except it was no joke. Shit like this didn’t happen. He always, always found a way to get things done, and that it was _Danny_ his strengths and skills had abandoned him on made it that much more difficult to handle.

None of the subjects of Danny’s past cases, here on the islands or back on the mainland, had come anywhere near this, though they were sifting through that pile again just to make sure nothing got overlooked. There was no paper trail. No cameras, anywhere apparently, had picked up any suspicious activity over in Kane‘ohe or accidental slips on security cameras. No unusual vehicle rentals. No nothing. And the vacuum in which they were working didn’t make sense. Steve had experienced too much nonsensical tragedy in his life to be able to stomach it now. Danny wasn’t dead, wasn’t going to die. It wasn’t happening.

“Five more tips on the BOLO turned out to be useless,” Chin said, weariness making his voice flat.

Steve had done the press conference himself, early this morning, and he’d made the mistake of watching himself on one of the re-airs. He’d sounded cold, collected, monotone, as if his insides weren’t turned into jelly. Score one for SEAL training. He closed his eyes briefly, pinched the bridge of his nose. In the hours after the statement release, the HPD tip line had rung off the hook. Unfortunately, most of the tips were outlandish, from alien ship sightings to theories of spontaneous combustion. 

The flood of calls had dried quickly to a trickle. That was how well executed the kidnap had been; everyday people their perps might have dismissed as unimportant hadn’t seen anything. There hadn’t been any everyday people around to witness anything, and that was so high on the improbability scale Steve thought his nose might bleed.

“All we’ve really learned is that there are more short, blond _haoles_ on the islands than we anticipated.” 

“Not the time, Chin,” Steve said angrily. There was only one short, blond _haole_ that mattered. “Jesus.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I’m tired.” Chin glanced at Steve, apologetic and definitely beyond tired. “I keep thinking something’s got to break soon, but realistically, HPD’s not going to be able to keep as active on this for much longer. Not even for a missing cop.”

Sighing, Steve lifted his hands to his face, pressed the butt of them against his eye sockets for a second and then reached up and threaded his fingers through his hair. He knew Chin was absolutely correct. Full immunity and means could only be employed if there was something to employ them against. HPD resources were finite. Steve knew this, he did. He also had to resist the urge to snap at Chin for voicing it. It was too soon to give up, damn it.

“Yeah, I know.” Steve tugged at his hair, then let his arms fall. It felt like the air was sucked out of his lungs at the same time, like he was deflating. “We’ve missed something. We need to find it. HPD might have to give other cases precedence, but we won’t. I swear, I will tear apart these isl…”

His cell buzzing and ringing in his pocket interrupted his motivational speech. With BOLO hits coming to him or Chin, there was no way Steve was ignoring it. He pulled the phone free, frowned at the screen.

“It’s the governor,” he murmured. Steve glanced at Chin and Kono, waved the phone at them as if they needed the extra clue and turned away to take the call. “McGarrett.”

 _“Hello, Commander,”_ Governor Jameson said, her voice warm but tired.

“Governor,” Steve said. “Five-0 can’t take another case right now.”

 _“Jesus, Steve, give me some credit. I was actually calling to see if you’d had any luck locating Detective Williams.”_ Jameson paused. _“Though I feel certain you would have called me if you had.”_

“Of course, and no. We’re still running into dead ends,” Steve said, unable to keep the anger out of his voice. “I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but I’m afraid I don’t have time for a chat right now.”

 _“Steve,”_ the governor said, slightly less warm now. _“I wonder if perhaps you, all of you, might be too close to this case.”_

No, just. No. Steve stalked into his office, to keep his reaction at least partially private. He paced a few steps, unable to speak for a second and the governor’s silence only made his gut hurt worse.

“If you think for one damned minute that Five-0 is going to hand this off to someone else,” Steve said, remarkably calm to his own ears, “you are a fool.”

Jameson continued to not say anything, which gave Steve the time to realize he had probably stepped in a heaping pile. He didn’t actually care, but the longer the silence, the more he wondered what the consequences would be. It couldn’t have lasted more than a few heartbeats, but it seemed longer.

 _“Steve, I realize that you are under an enormous amount of pressure at the moment so I’m prepared to cut you some slack when it comes to tact,”_ Jameson said. _“We’ll just chalk the fact that you just called the highest ranking government official on this island a fool up to exhaustion, shall we?”_

“Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry.” 

He wasn’t, not really, but contrary to popular belief, Steve did know how to communicate like an adult.

_“I know how much Detective Williams means to Five-0, and by extension the State of Hawai’i. Now, the other reason I called was that I heard something you migh –”_

Chin burst through his door, one hand hanging on the frame to stop his forward momentum. He seemed breathless, though he’d only been a few steps outside the office. 

“They found him,” Chin said. “They’ve got Danny.”

His hand fell to his side and with it, the phone and the governor on the other end.

“Found? What?”

“Duke confirmed it personally. It’s legit. They’ve got him en route to Queen’s right now.”

Chin looked both upset and excited, and Steve didn’t know how to interpret that through the intense wave of relief crashing through him. He took a step back, bumped against the edge of his desk and leaned on it for support. Like every single thing about the abduction, this didn’t make sense. He couldn’t wrap his head around it quite yet.

Steve gathered enough wits to bring the phone back up to say, “Governor, I’m going to have to call you back.”

 _“Go,”_ she said. _“See to your man.”_

He had already pushed by Chin out of his office and was halfway to the door when her words registered. Steve stuffed the phone into his pocket. There were about a thousand questions flashing through his head, but more pressing than any of them was the need to get to the hospital and make sure Danny was okay. 

“Condition? What’s his … is he … he’s okay, though.”

“Alive is all we know, _brah_ ,” Kono said. “Let’s just get there.”

Alive. Alive was … Jesus, Steve should not be this affected. He didn’t pay attention to Chin and Kono, knew they’d be right behind him. He just jumped into the Camaro and wished Danny was actually there to bitch him out while he careened to Queen’s. Soon, things would be back to normal. He drove on instinct alone, he thought, years of training enabling him to get from point A to point B with minimal cerebral participation. His thoughts were all on Danny. On finding the people who had treated his partner like they were catch and release fishing. Which, of course, was better than catch and kill. 

That was the thought in his head as he burst through the ER doors and headed right for the check-in desk, and it only spurred another – that Danny had been released and he was alive, but that didn’t mean he’d stay that way. Steve didn’t know one actual thing about Danny, where he’d been, what he’d gone through. The adrenaline that had fueled him to the hospital faded enough for his cluelessness to sink in, which then had his adrenaline skyrocket again. He wasn’t a man who enjoyed uncertainty, not when it came to friends. Not when it came to family. Most definitely not when it came to Danny.

“Steve McGarrett, Five-0,” Steve said. “I need you to tell me where they’re treating Detective Williams.”

He leaned on the counter. Loomed, even. The man behind it, shorter than Steve by several inches and clad in navy scrubs, recoiled slightly. In that moment, Steve could almost hear Danny calling him on the misdirected anger and shouting as well. He half expected it would really happen in any moment, a distant, cantankerous rant from somewhere in the ER. 

“Sir, we don’t … ”

“ _Don’t_ give me that.”

“Steve, HQ is only half a mile from here,” Kono said quietly, a soft hand at his elbow. “There’s a good chance we beat the bus.”

On cue, the ER doors burst open and through them came a gurney, an EMT and a few steps after, Officer Duke Lukela. And Danny, who for a live soul looked pale as a ghost under an untidy scruff of beard, lay on that gurney unconscious. Steve took a step toward them, and was pushed aside by hospital staff. He moved forward again, but stayed out of the way. He knew better than to impede treatment. It was five seconds, maybe ten, and then Danny was wheeled out of the intake area and into the guts of the emergency department. Only after the swinging doors shut did Steve look at Chin and Kono. They looked as shaken as he felt.

“ _Auwe_ , did you see his wrists?” Chin said, and the anger simmered right in there along with the concern.

Steve hadn’t. He’d only seen Danny’s face, hadn’t had the chance or angle to look beyond that. He probably wouldn’t have anyway. Seeing Danny like that only made the hole in his gut grow bigger. Danny was back, the hole was supposed to go away. He turned to Duke, who stood there with an awkward scowl on his face.

“Where was he?” Steve asked. “Who found him?”

“When I heard dispatch, I saw to him myself. Got there just as the ambulance arrived, left the interviewing to the junior officers at scene. Didn’t know if he’d need protective detail,” Duke said. “I know that one of the other tenants in his apartment complex noticed him lying on a picnic table in the common court area, recognized him and called it in.” 

Jesus. Someone had wanted something from Danny, presumably gotten it and dumped him where someone would find him easily, like a show of power. Someone had done that to him. To Danny. His partner. Steve clenched his hands into fists and was at the doors separating them from their injured team member before thinking about doing it. He needed to see if Danny was all right. He needed to talk to him. He needed Danny.

“Sir, you can’t go back there,” the guy behind the counter called.

Steve continued on as if he hadn’t heard. He’d let Chin smooth ruffled feathers, as he knew would happen. He wouldn’t say they threw Five-0’s status around like candy at a parade, but he also knew when to use it. This counted. At the very least, he had to make sure those caring for Danny knew that he had to be examined with evidence collection in mind. The thought provoked a sour taste in his mouth. He had barely made it through the doors when a young woman approached, looking directly at him.

“You’re Commander McGarrett, right?” she asked. 

“Yeah.” His reputation preceded him? It wasn’t like Five-0 spent a lot of time in the hospital, but then he remembered the press conference and that he was the public face for the task force. “That’s me.”

“Detective Williams has regained consciousness, but he’s extremely disoriented. Doctor Iihama sent me to collect one of you in the hopes he can be calmed. We think … there’s evidence to suggest he’s been given something intravenously, and without knowing what it is we’re reluctant to use a sedative.”

“Take me to him.”

Disoriented was one word. Agitated was the one that came to Steve’s mind. As he followed the nurse to the small exam station, the first thing he noticed was Danny’s kicking legs. The second thing was the hoarse, distressed whisper of a voice, saying words that were unintelligible. He hated the sound of it, yet was so relieved to hear Danny’s voice at all that his legs shook slightly. 

The people hovering around the gurney parted for Steve, opened up just enough space for him to slip in without compromising their work. They’d removed most of Danny’s clothes, and a quick scan revealed no obvious physical injuries, no major bruises to body or face. Outside of the chafed and bleeding wrists Chin had mentioned, Danny had _fought_ and fought hard, he looked … better than he had when fully unconscious, but still awful. The smell of stale sweat and urine rolled off of him, a smell Steve knew all to well as that of a person terrorized and held against his will.

“Hey. Hey, Danny,” Steve said. He placed a careful hand on Danny’s left shoulder and leaned close. “It’s okay, huh? Let them help you.”

Danny turned toward the sound of Steve’s voice, eyes open in slits only and obviously not registering much. If anything, it looked like the light was too bright for him and Steve knew that probably meant his partner had been held in the dark. He recognized that symptom as well, firsthand knowledge. Danny opened his mouth and mumbled something Steve couldn’t hear, so he tilted his head and brought himself closer still.

“Ace?” Danny said, or that was all that came out.

Shit. Shit, of course.

“Grace is fine. She’s okay, Danny.”

“No.” Danny thrashed weakly on the gurney, raised a shaky arm. “Numph.”

“She’s good, Danny,” Steve said again and pulled back, on the off chance Danny would see him at last and the truth in his eyes. “I swear to you, Grace was never in any danger. Just let it go, okay?”

“No,” Danny said. His hand fumbled up, fought against the nurses who struggled to pull his arm back down to tend to his wrists. “It. You. Face?”

Danny’s hand was cold against Steve’s cheek, and his fingers callused. Steve furrowed his eyebrows, but didn’t try to shirk from the touch. He had no idea what Danny was talking about, but the confusion laced through the hoarseness tore at him. Danny didn’t look like he knew where he was, or what he was asking either. He ignored it, only because right now Danny was the only one who could tell them what had happened to him. 

“Danny,” Steve said, and hated himself for doing anything but provide comfort to his friend right now. He wanted justice for whoever had reduced Danny to this broken mess unable to string together his normally potent words. “Can you tell me where you’ve been? Who had you?”

But Danny couldn’t, Steve saw that immediately. Danny’s hand fell from his face and he missed the contact, but Danny’s eyes opened wider and started darting back and forth, his breathing growing more and more ragged. Steve had made a mistake. He shouldn’t have pushed. He was there to calm Danny down, not send him spiraling further into bewildered, heartbreaking panic. 

“Shh,” Steve said. “I’m sorry. Forget it, huh? Just rest.”

“Oh,” Danny said, surprised. His eyes locked and stuck on Steve’s face, bleary, bloodshot, still not truly there, and amazing. “ _Steve._ ”

With that, Danny’s eyes rolled into the back of his head as he passed out again. Steve, purpose served, was elbowed out of the way as the doctors and nurses reenergized their treatment. He watched helplessly until someone took notice of him and ushered him back out. As much as he wanted to stay, Steve also wanted to flee and not see Danny like that anymore. He retreated, with visions of vengeance dancing in his head.


	3. Chapter 3

H50H50H50

The hole in Danny’s brain was figurative, but as far as he was concerned it felt real. Try as he might, he could not remember anything beyond leaving the Palace on Friday night to pick up Grace and waking up in a hospital bed in the wee hours of the morning with a headache, the taste of a dead animal in his mouth and a worried partner staring down at him. Two out of three of those things he could have lived without. Okay, well, actually three out of three, because Steve’s worried face distressed him more than he thought it should. He’d even take Steve’s _ImmaShootSomeone_ face over the stark, naked anxiety he’d seen in that fraction of a second, and he knew why even if he wasn’t ready to deal with it. His life was complicated enough.

Danny knew the gist of what had happened between Friday and now because he’d been told it, but as far as he was concerned those four days were simply gone. Poof. They hadn’t happened, hadn’t even really existed. He was pissed about being forcibly removed while Grace had been a few steps from him, though he was honestly glad he didn’t remember that, or any of it based on how shitty exhausted he felt and on the lingering worried looks people kept shooting him like maybe he’d up and vanish on them. As angry as he was about all of that, he thought maybe he was angrier that whoever had taken him had robbed him of some of the precious little time he got to spend with his daughter on an annual basis. He knew it was messed up, that his priorities were skewed.

He blamed his misdirected anger on the short-term memory loss, which was compliments of a drug cocktail neither the lab here in the hospital nor HPD’s master wunderkind with a remarkable turnaround time crime tech Charlie Fong had ever seen before.

Other than the hole in his memory, there wasn’t anything wrong with him. The drugs he’d been pumped with, whatever they had been, metabolized quickly and didn’t seem to have any unusual side effects. Twelve hours after waking up to find it suddenly Wednesday, Danny was being released on his own recognizance. All he needed was a gallon of water, two gallons of mouthwash, a shower, maybe a few power naps and he’d be back to his usual spry self. He couldn’t make it happen fast enough. 

No, literally, he couldn’t. 

Danny struggled with his pants. The wide swath of gauze ensconcing his wrists was stiff and made basic tasks like buttoning awkward. He was thankful he’d been left alone so no one would have to witness this embarrassment, though when he finally succeeded in threading the button through its hole it would have been nice to share a celebratory grin with someone. Steve, actually, God help him. Danny gave a side-eyed look at the belt lying on the bed and decided that perhaps it was time to ditch the cheap khakis and belt both in favor of some better, tailored trousers with which he could forego the use of a belt altogether. 

There he stood hating on the innocent strip of leather, when from the corridor he heard the rapidly approaching footsteps of someone small and Grace-shaped. Much as Steve had seemed ready to pitch a fit about not being the one to cart Danny home, Rachel apparently pulled rank and said that Grace needed to see her father. The argument had been lost before it had started, Danny had known that as Steve recounted it to him with a hangdog look on his face, but the soft expression that had taken hold of Steve when he mentioned Grace’s name did funny things to Danny’s heart. What also did funny things was this benevolence of Rachel’s, allowing him not one but two unscheduled mid-week nights with Gracie, as he was well enough to handle it. 

Danny broke into a grin when he heard Grace’s voice, made a quick check that he’d put his T-shirt on the right way and had, in fact, remembered to tug his zipper up. He hadn’t, and was in the middle of doing so when the most important girl in the world tiptoed into the room. It was impossible to recover from that awkwardness, but he didn’t give two shakes of a damn what he looked like in that regard. He was upright, mobile and he’d had a shave. It was safe for his daughter to see him without causing her undo worry. He didn’t remember what had happened, yet somehow seeing Grace break her tiptoe and launch into a full run for the few short steps from door to bed was somehow much more poignant than anything, ever. 

“Monkey,” Danny said, opening his arms wide.

“Danno!” Grace cried as she plowed into him. 

Grace wrapped her arms around his waist and then did a fair impression of an actual monkey. Danny staggered back toward the bed to compensate, resting his butt on it while his little girl scampered up so she could give him a wet kiss on the cheek and a tight, tight hug. He glanced over at Rachel, who merely looked back with haunted eyes and a half smile, bittersweet. He thought he saw love in her expression too, and that was both welcome and terrifying. He loved Rachel, always would, but it wasn’t … he didn’t think he was in love with her anymore.

After Matty, he’d needed someone who knew his brother to tell him things were going to be okay. He hadn’t intended for more, yet more had happened and now there was a thing between him and Rachel, a burgeoning possibility he couldn’t deny. He was once bitten about it, was all. It was everything Danny had always wanted, deep down in that part of him that he’d buried while they bickered and fought and divorced. It was within reach now and there he was, unsure what he wanted was the same thing as what he needed, what any of them needed.

“Daniel,” Rachel said warmly. “It’s good to see you. You look … well.”

“Daddy, don’t you ever,” Grace said, practically on top of her mother’s words, “never, ever leave me like that again.”

Danny’s heart broke. He didn’t remember a thing, but Grace did. He rested his chin on the top of her head and just held on for a few moments, emotion clogging his throat. He looked helplessly at Rachel, who averted her eyes and pressed a hand against her mouth.

“You know I will do my very best,” Danny said at last, eyes still on his ex-wife and so he saw the way her hand pressed even harder against her lips, like he’d said something wrong. This was one time he was confident he hadn’t. He wasn’t going to lie to Grace. “But you know that my job, while very important, can sometimes be very dangerous as well.”

“I know, you tell me that all the time. I just missed you and I was scared,” Grace said. “Can we go now?”

“Absolutely, let’s do that.”

In the car, Grace was content to tuck herself close to Danny’s side in the back seat where she insisted he sit and chatter about her day at school while Rachel chauffeured them to Danny’s inadequate apartment. Normally, he’d have made plans, had a whole bunch of things to do with Grace lined up. He knew he compensated too much for his limited visitation, but he couldn’t seem to help it. He didn’t mind the lack of scheduled activities in this one instance. Something in him simply needed time with his daughter, and he suspected the same was true for her. 

“Thanks for this, Rachel,” Danny murmured after they’d reached his apartment and Grace had scampered to the door with his keys in hand. “It means a lot.”

“Yes, well. You’re her father,” Rachel said with a shrug and a soft, almost sad smile. “We were _both_ worried, you know.”

“Rach, if you…”

“No, I know it wasn’t your fault. Contrary to popular belief, I do understand that. These past few days haven’t been easy, for Grace especially. It’s plain to see that she needs the time.” Rachel looked pained for a second. “Please thank Commander McGarrett for me again, will you?”

“Thank him for letting you give me a ride home?” Danny laughed. “I don’t know if that’s necessary.”

“No, no,” she said. “I’d have thought he’d told you. On Sunday, I didn’t have my phone and he took care of Grace for several hours, kept her calm and safe until I was able to come for her.”

“Oh,” Danny said.

“Yes, oh. It was quite sweet. Remarkable, really, how Grace has taken to him.” Rachel chewed on her lower lip for a moment. “He’s a good man, a good partner for you, I think.”

“Well, not that it’s any of your concern who I work with, but I’m glad you approve. I guess?”

Rachel rolled her eyes and presented her left cheek, which Danny promptly kissed but didn’t linger with it. He wasn’t used to being on good terms with her, or to the thrum of that familiar attraction. Danny stood there for a moment as she drove off, wondering if it was his recent misadventures that had made Rachel off today, or if it was something else. He knew she and Stan weren’t doing great, which he found satisfying in a wholly petty way. 

Grace calling his name had him moving. Danny trotted to his apartment, determined to enjoy every single minute of his bonus time with her. He wasn’t going to spend it thinking about Rachel, or about the missing days and what had happened during them, or what leads Chin, Kono and Steve were following up on at that minute. None of that was important. Just Grace.

They didn’t do much. Turned out Grace had no interest in going out, which made sense since the last time they did it, Danny disappeared. Danny ordered take out, because even if he hadn’t been gone for four days, he didn’t have much in his cupboards anyway. Later, he burned some microwave popcorn, they watched _Finding Nemo_ for the four billionth time (the theme of which he tried hard not to think about) while he painted her nails and did all sorts of stuff he should by all rights be embarrassed about as a grown man but simply wasn’t. He was good at drawing tiny little daisies on her tiny little pink nails by now and anything to make Grace happy, really, Danny was going to do.

Next day, Danny accidentally forgot to take Grace to school but managed to have her teachers send her assignments, and they spent the whole day just hanging. They did leave the apartment, for essential food runs and because Danny knew it wasn’t healthy for Grace to stay sheltered in for too long. He understood her reluctance and it hurt him the way she would not let go of his hand for a moment while they were picking out the necessary ingredients for dinner or stopping by to see Shamu for a shave ice, but never going out in public with her again would only give her major psychological issues. He and Rachel had caused her enough emotional turmoil as it was. 

He steered Steve away from talking about his case during the few phone calls he fielded from his partner during the day, and calls from Chin and Kono as well. McGarrett, though. The man hovered even when he wasn’t there, which would be annoying if it didn’t make Danny feel slightly warm and nice. Steve wanted vengeance and probably had a battle plan in place already. Danny could hear it in his tone even if they didn’t openly discuss it, hadn’t uttered a word about it since he had woken up completely unable to provide information about his own kidnapping. 

Danny knew his partner, and knew eventually he’d have time to help Steve work through those issues, but that was not for today. He’d leave the vengeance planning for Steve. All Danny wanted was to concentrate on the fact he was still around for Grace, and that whoever had taken him hadn’t done irreparable damage. He was taking a very Zen approach, for a change.

Now, the apartment was humid and the smell of cooking pasta hung in the air. Danny’s knuckles scraped against the grater. He swore under his breath, shook it out. He was in the mood for the comfortiest of comfort foods and it was one of Grace’s favorites. He was no gourmet. His culinary repertoire was limited to mostly kid friendly dishes, but none of which he skimped on. His tomato soup didn’t come from a can. His bread was whole grain. His macaroni and cheese wasn’t flavored with some unnatural colored powder. 

“Hey, Grace, what you doing over there?” he called out into the living area. “You’re usually all about grating the cheese.”

“Just finished drawing a picture.”

“Yeah?”

“Want to see it?” Grace said.

“Do I want to see it? When have I never wanted to see one of your masterpieces?” Danny said. “I’ll clear a space on the fridge right now.”

Grace joined him in the kitchen, an eight by eleven piece of white paper clutched to her chest. She shook her head and said, “It’s not for you.”

“Ouch, Monkey, way to get my hopes up.” He winked at her. “Who’s it for?”

“Uncle Steve,” Grace said with a shoulder shrug. She cozied up next to Danny, fitted neatly under his arm.

“Oh, so it’s Uncle Steve now. Uncle.” Danny let that roll around in his head a few times. “Huh.”

“That’s okay, right?”

Danny thought about Rachel telling him Steve had stuck with Grace for hours after he had disappeared on Sunday, when he knew for damned sure that Steve would have been itching to take action of any kind. He’d thought about that every time Steve had called him today, actually, and the way Steve didn’t just ask after Danny but Grace as well. During every call. 

“I think maybe it’s just fine,” Danny said. “Let’s see it.”

The front side of the paper was covered in bright flowers and a tall figure in the middle wearing, Danny was pretty sure, cargo pants. He was surrounded by hearts in a full rainbow of colors. In giant letters at the top (and a little on the sides, Grace wasn’t great at gauging space) was _Thank you for finding my daddy!!_ And at the bottom was _I love you, Uncle Steve_.

Oh, his heart.

“D’you think he’ll like it?” Grace asked shyly.

“I cannot fathom a reason he wouldn’t. But if he defies logic and doesn’t, he and I will have words until he does,” Danny said. “Very strong words. You love him, huh?”

“Well, he is very handsome and strong.”

That … was not untrue. Danny’s neck felt warm, and it wasn’t the added heat one measly pot of boiling water could bring to this tiny kitchen.

“Maybe we could go give it to him now,” Grace said. “I really want to be the one to give it to him.”

Danny eyed the pile of cheese, then the pot of pasta, and chewed on the inside of his lip for a moment. He supposed it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to share a meal with McGarrett. They could assemble here, cook at Steve’s. Besides, he was a total pushover for Grace’s doe eyes, aimed at him at the moment to maximum effect. The timer on the pasta dinged. 

“Pack it up, we’re taking dinner on the road,” Danny said with an elaborate swirl of his hands.

Grace cheered.

And if Steve wasn’t home when Danny called to warn him of the impending Williams invasion, Danny was almost one hundred percent certain Steve would drop everything to get there and pretend he’d always been.

H50H50H50

Steve couldn’t say he was wholly satisfied with the outcome, but knew it was the best he was going to get. It pissed him off that no real justice would be meted out for the assholes who’d taken Danny. No amount of favors called in was going to put them behind bars where they belonged. There was no evidence, not a single traceable thread. None, and with Danny’s memory of the events surrounding his abduction and captivity having been essentially erased (Steve would never forget the look on Danny’s face when he realized there was a four day gap in his head), Five-0 didn’t even have the thinnest of leads to go on.

He wasn’t sure he would have even made the connection at all if Governor Jameson hadn’t given him a hint about a rumor she’d heard about a certain pair of individuals who had access to plenty of government resources. The criminals _weren’t_ criminals and had even managed to be in two places at once, at least on paper. To be honest, that last bit surprised him. They’d read as bumbling fools to him, incapable of a plan this intricate so quickly put together.

“I really appreciate this,” Steve said.

_“As long as you’re sure you want to cash this card in now.”_

“Yeah.” Steve recalled with damning accuracy Grace’s tear-streaked face, and Danny’s panic and confusion when he’d first been brought in to the emergency room. Chin and Kono’s grim expressions and Rachel’s worry weren’t far behind. His own reflection in a starkly lit hospital bathroom mirror. “These fuckers grabbed my partner, messed with his head and then dumped him like so much garbage in his own front yard. I’m very sure this is the bare minimum they deserve.”

_“All debts have now been paid?”_

“Yes. Thanks again.”

_“I feel like I’m the one who should thank you. This is a cakewalk compared to what you did for me.”_

“It’s worth it,” Steve said, picturing Danny dirty, unshaven and confused on a hospital gurney.

He ended the call and tossed the burn phone into the open desk drawer, then shut it. He’d get rid of it later. He scrubbed a hand down his face, scowled at the scruff of beard decorating it, just getting to the itchy phase. It had taken nearly a day to come to the conclusion that Five-0 could toss a metric ton of proverbial cooked spaghetti against the wall and none of it was going to stick, another day beyond that to accomplish this unsatisfying piece of retribution. He’d sent Chin and Kono home for much needed rest earlier this morning. Steve stretched his weary muscles, ready to do the same himself. He hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep since Saturday.

Steve dug out his keys and headed for the door. He itched to call Danny, for the fifth time today. Not that he was counting. He just … well. He knew Danny needed time with Grace, and knew school would be out in a few hours. He wasn’t going to trample on the extra time Danny had been granted, but he felt this niggling need to hear his partner’s voice and make sure he was okay. Sue him. It was _Danny_. His phone vibrated an incoming text before he could call Danny and before he made it to the truck. He pulled it out of his pocket and was faintly disappointed to see it wasn’t from the man occupying his thoughts. 

_Grinds. Stuff. U. Me. Chin. Side Street?_

_Rainck. Me. Bed. Sleep,_ he texted back, with a shake of his head and a soft smile.

 _Shoots!_ Kono texted, somehow conveying her cheerfulness in text form.

Steve got in the truck. He successfully resisted the urge to check in on Danny again, knowing his concentration should be on driving. He really was very tired, and now he could sleep with visions of at least some small amount of karma being visited on the people who’d hurt Danny. The governor had guaranteed Five-0 (to the best of her ability) the rest of the week off. He didn’t count on it, but he hoped it’d at least buy him a decent eight hours of sleep. The closer he got to home, the more he realized how exhausted he was. 

Having run on vapors of coffee and bites of food snatched as an afterthought for the better part of four and a half days, the first thing Steve did when he got home was slide face first onto the leather sofa conveniently placed adjacent to the door and, with a vague inkling that he should have at least shot for the bed upstairs, his body’s needs took over for his brain’s wants. 

And he woke to the sound of his phone going off in a familiar, _I’m too sexy for my shirt, too sexy for my shirt, so sexy it huuuurts_. Steve fumbled awkwardly on the sofa, limbs uncoordinated to be pulled out of a deep sleep, and it took him three loops of the song lyric to get the phone out of his pocket.

“Yeah, Danny, hey,” Steve said, voice craggy. “What’s up? You okay?”

Danny’s sigh was audible.

 _“I am fine. How long’s it going to be before you stop asking me that first thing?”_ Danny groused.

Steve heard Grace’s voice in the background and Danny snorting at her. 

“Maybe never.” Steve sat up, ran a hand through his hair. His mouth felt tacky and gross. Actually, every bit of him did. “You know how it goes.”

_“Sure, right. Listen, ah, you up for some company? I have a very beautiful girl who wants to spend some quality time with her … Uncle Steve, is it now?”_

“Danny, about that, I, ah…”

 _“It’s fine, actually. Cute. What’s the verdict, huh? We’ve got dinner, if you can stand having us there.”_ Danny paused to say something quietly to Grace again, then his voice got clearer again, _“You home right now?”_

“Sure, come on over.”

_“We will be there in a few, then.”_

Danny mumbled something about maybe beating Steve there, and disconnected. 

Steve stood slowly, stretching out the kinks of sleeping in an uncomfortable position on an unsupportive piece of furniture. And smelled himself. He … stank. He had bumped showers down the priority list right along with food and sleep these past few days. Hours on a leather sofa in the hottest part of the day had done him no favors, either. His shirt clung to him, damp with sweat, and he felt grimy. 

Horrified at the thought of Grace seeing him hairy and smelly like a mountain man, he vaulted the stairs three at a time. Danny had seen and smelled him in worse conditions, yet Steve would be a liar if he said the idea of being clean was one hundred percent for Gracie’s benefit. He stripped efficiently, and in a fluid motion tossed his clothes in a pile next to the laundry basket and hopped in the master bathroom shower. 

Steve gave himself a perfunctory scrub, brushed his teeth and then shaved carefully, all of which took at most ten minutes. He was just tugging a fresh polo shirt over his head when he heard the car pull up. Danny must have already been on the road when he’d called. He grinned to himself as he started down the stairs, feet still bare. Due to Grace’s presence and probably only that, Danny knocked and waited for Steve to answer. His grin got wider and he pulled the door open. 

For a breath, maybe two, there was an awkward moment of him staring at Danny and, Steve’s stomach did a weird flip, deep down, Danny staring right back at him. Steve couldn’t tell, it happened too fast, but he would have sworn Danny gave him a full body roam before pinning his gaze on Steve’s toes. 

“Hi guys,” Steve said. “Come on in.”

Grace gave him the world’s biggest smile and took a tentative step inside, carrying a small tote with a beach towel peeking out from the top. Danny’s arms, wrists still bandaged, were laden with a large casserole dish and a grocery bag filled with broccoli, what looked like breadcrumbs, and a rolled piece of paper.

“It must have been a close one,” Danny said to Grace as he pointed at Steve’s head, and the pair of them shared a secretive little smile. He retrieved the paper and handed it to her. “Told you, didn’t I?”

Steve had no idea what Danny meant. He didn’t much care; he often had no idea what Danny meant. The point was, Danny was there, talking. The man could recite the alphabet, forwards, backwards and sideways and Steve would be glad to endure it. He grinned at Danny again, thinking if he couldn’t beat them, he’d join them. Danny favored him with a look that was both smug and fond.

“Kitchen.” Danny made the proclamation and brushed by Steve through the house. “I hope you’re hungry, McGarrett.”

Steve’s stomach rumbled. He clutched it dramatically and made a face at Grace. She giggled at him before she grabbed his hand. She didn’t move to follow Danny, though, just stood there looking shy. 

“I made this for you,” Grace said. She held out the paper.

Steve took it, unrolled it and had no idea what to say when he saw the bright colors and bold letters, the hearts and the word love so effortlessly afforded. So he just crouched and gave her a quick hug. The words were easier to come by when he wasn’t faced with that precious face of hers. 

“It’s beautiful, honey, thank you. I’m glad he’s back too,” Steve said into her hair, even though he had nothing to do with finding Danny. 

“Want to hang it on your fridge?”

“I can think of no better place.” 

Grace wiggled free from the hug but continued holding Steve’s hand. She started tugging him along toward the kitchen. He stared at her tiny fingers wrapped around three of his, a bit awed at how comfortable she seemed and how comfortable he felt himself. 

Danny had turned the oven on and was rinsing the broccoli under the faucet. He turned around and watched with a gentle expression as Steve put up the picture. Their eyes met. Danny tilted his head, gave him a half smile, then eyed the mess of implements on the table, left there from Steve’s attempt to alleviate boredom on Sunday. 

“Don’t think I don’t know what that’s all about,” Danny said. He waved his hands over the neatly sorted piles. “I know exactly what you were doing here, you maniac.”

“I have no idea what you mean,” Steve said, attention focused on Danny’s hands and the swaths of white on his wrists, which didn’t look to impede him at all anymore. He flicked his eyes up, tried to look very innocent. “Other than reorganizing my drawers, what could it be about?”

Danny snorted and shook his head, a smile playing at making an appearance. It was a tease only, the smile never forming all the way as Danny plonked the broccoli next to the knife pile. Instead of cutting off the florets, he reached a hand out and planted it on top of Grace’s head. He jiggled her and she rolled her eyes in exasperated tolerance.

“We’ve got a solid forty-five minutes before the mac and cheese – and ah, no word from you, McGarrett, you will eat it and you will love it, cheese and all – so there’s time if you want to maybe stick your toes in the water?”

He remained mum about the carbohydrate and cheese loaded main dish. It actually sounded good. Steve had no idea where anyone got the idea he was a food puritan. He resisted the urge to mention that as well. He might be enjoying the hell out of having his partner alive, well and snarky, but he didn’t feel up to a banter session. 

“Yay, you’ll come with me?” Grace asked, peeling off her T-shirt to reveal a swimsuit underneath. “Please? I brought golf balls.”

Steve waited for Danny’s anti-beach tirade, but it never came and it was when he noticed Grace was looking at him intently that he realized the question hadn’t been for Danny. He didn’t want to go into the water, for a change. Exhaustion still lingered around the edges. Somehow, he said yes anyway and soon found himself suited up and trying to figure out how a grown man was supposed to play with a little girl and have it not be weird. For the first time in a while, he felt out of sorts when it came to Grace. 

Grace explained the golf balls were for her to lob into the ocean and then they’d have a contest to see who could find and collect the most. Steve must have looked skeptical.

“Danno plays with me all the time,” Grace said and smiled sweetly.

Again he didn’t know why, but found himself bobbing for golf balls. He failed to see the point, until they started in earnest and then he started to look at it as a light training exercise. And Grace enjoyed the hell out of beating him, so he suddenly developed an inability to see anything that looked similar to a golf ball and a good time was had by all. Including Danny, who’d begged off the water due to his wrists and sat watching them from the chairs. His little stretch of sand and rock wasn’t much, and he could see Danny watching them with a faraway look in his eyes and a small smile.

Occasionally, Steve felt Danny’s eyes on him solely and finally turned to catch Danny at it. Danny stared back at him, calm and something else Steve hadn’t seen in his partner’s eyes before. He had the distinct feeling that one way or another his life was going to be different after tonight. He couldn’t wait, to be honest.

H50H50H50

The golf ball game was one Danny and his brother and sisters had played when they were kids during their summer week of camping at the Wanaque Reservoir. It wasn’t much as far as vacations went, but he’d always looked forward to it. He watched Gracie and Steve play the game with a feeling more bitter than sweet. A month ago, it would have only been good memories, but every time he thought of Matty he felt sick all the way down to his feet. He didn’t know how long that was going to last. He suspected forever.

At first, when he could see Steve had no real clue what the object was, he entertained thoughts of rescuing his partner. He and Grace had ambushed Steve, after all. Danny still felt a thrill inside him at how reverently Steve had treated that drawing of Grace’s, and knew instinctively Steve hadn’t been humoring either of them; he genuinely adored the picture and Grace. That was when he had the realization that tonight the complication he thought he didn’t want to address would not wait for another day. 

Watching Steve with Grace now, playing when he didn’t want to and then ending up having a blast himself sealed the deal. Danny considered that night of sex with Rachel, the solace that it had been and the subsequent and lingering possibility of them acting even further on their history and familiarity with each other. He wanted a family. He wouldn’t deny that he thrived on familial ties and at being meshed into a tight-knit group, protector and protected at the same time. The thoughts he’d had about it being Rachel he wanted it with were fading fast, though, startlingly so.

“Daddy, look,” Grace shouted.

The golf ball pseudo egg hunt had ended. Now Steve stood slightly above waist deep and had Grace on his shoulders. If it were anyone else, Danny would probably have entered rant mode the second he saw that. Actually, no, last week he might have entered rant mode even with Steve. Now, damn it, all he could do was try to keep his heart from being squished too hard. He stood and watched as Steve pitched Grace backwards, high enough for her to do a little flipping somersault into the water. She came up spluttering, but with peals of laughter. 

“Very acrobatic,” Danny called and thought Grace was going to be out like a light in about three hours due to all this activity. “Excellent form. You get a ten from this judge.”

“Thanks, Danny, but what about Grace?” Steve asked and then honest to goodness giggle-snorted.

Oh, fuck him, anyway. It wasn’t like he was a stranger to being attracted to men. That part of himself had always been and would always be. Even so, Danny hadn’t expected the warm fuzzies to commence after the initial burst of plain, animal attraction to Steve. He really hadn’t. He was a giant idiot sometimes. 

“You’re hilarious, McGarrett.” Danny glanced at the egg timer he’d brought with him to make sure he didn’t lose sight of dinner. It had about three minutes on it. “Hey, you two, come on out and get yourselves ready for dinner, huh?”

The pair of them scampered toward him like puppy dogs, Danny swore. It was adorable. He was doomed. Shaking his head with the knowledge of his own demise (salvation), he retreated to the kitchen to prep and steam the broccoli and take the casserole out. No way was he setting the table, though. Domestic chores would be shared. He kept an ear on Grace and Steve, basked a bit in their muffled conversation as they rinsed off outside and came in quickly. 

“I don’t know where your kitchenware is,” Danny said, though he did, somehow, “so grab it, will you?”

“Your dad’s a slave driver,” Steve murmured.

“Yeah, I know,” Grace said, long-suffering. 

Dinner wasn’t as boisterous as it could have been, with Steve and Grace eating as if they hadn’t in days. Danny would have been amused, except it was entirely possible Steve, at least, hadn’t considered vital bodily needs these past few days. The days he mostly couldn’t remember. Still, there were enough random bouts of conversation to make it comfortable, like they’d sat down for a meal together often, in a home rather than a restaurant.

“You’re right, ‘sgood,” Steve said, mouth full of pasta.

“Jeez, manners. There’s a child present.”

“Sorry. I didn’t realize how hungry I was.” Steve patted his belly and eyed the casserole dish. It was empty. “I also have to restore you some chef points.”

“You have broccoli in your teeth,” Danny said.

He stood and grabbed his plate, and Grace’s. They all took up items and helped clear the table, and there was no way Danny was leaving Steve with a mess in his kitchen. He might be a slob in private, but he tried, not always successfully, to not make that a public habit. 

“Danno, can I watch a movie?” Grace asked, voice already sleepy.

“Ask Steve to get it set up for you, huh?”

“Uncle Steve, can you show me where to watch?”

“Sure thing, sweetheart.”

Oh. Something about how the way the word sweetheart rolled of Steve’s tongue hit Danny low in the belly. He hunched over the sink as he filled it with water and soap. Steve and Grace wandered out and after a few minutes Steve wandered back in. They did dishes quickly. 

“Beer?” Steve asked when they were done. “Nice night to sit on the lanai.”

“Sure.” 

Danny poked his head into the living area on the way out, to make sure Grace was okay watching the movie alone and that she knew where to find him if she needed. He didn’t know if he could bear another night of _Finding Nemo_ , and hoped she’d overcome that obsession soon. He’d made solid progress in ensuring Grace knew he was back and there to stay; he had to remember to thank Rachel again for the extra time. When he made it outside, Steve sat there staring at the ocean. He took a seat, and for a long while they sat quietly, just drinking their beers slowly.

There was only so much silence Danny could take, though, and thoughts rattled around in his head the whole time. The problem was he had no idea where to begin this conversation, or if this was even the right time and place for it. The air felt a little charged, still easy but different to how it had always been between them. He was more than a little convinced he was not alone in his attraction. 

“I slept with Rachel,” Danny said all of a sudden. He swallowed, because he hadn’t meant to say _that_ , except now that he had he knew it was important. “After my brother took off with the scum of the Earth. I didn’t mean to, but it happened and I think … maybe I …”

He watched as Steve’s hand grasped his bottle of beer tightly. Danny could not bear to look at the guy’s face, afraid of what he’d see and also afraid of what he might not.

“Danny, it’s none of my business,” Steve said after a beat, voice hollow. “You have no reason to tell me that.”

“No, see, I do.” Danny ran a hand through his hair. “I might have every reason and because of that I need to be honest, here.”

Danny did chance a look at Steve then, and the guy looked ready to bolt and scared stiff at the same time. He looked miserable, was what he looked, and Danny hated that he was the one who’d made that expression appear. This, on top of days missing and knowing how that must have been for the whole team. He was a fool for doing this now. He plowed on.

“I’ve spent a lot of time wanting my family back, and the funny thing is, I think I could have it now. I think Rachel...” Danny cleared his throat, took a swig of beer and set the bottle aside. “Then this thing happened to me.”

Bits and pieces had come back. He hadn’t told anyone, because mostly they were a garbled mess. Danny thought they were echoes of how he’d felt more than actual memories, and, well, it wasn’t exactly pleasant, save for one thing. 

“And I don’t remember anything about it except some random, nebulous recollection of a face keeping me awake and alive. I thought given the circumstances, it must have been Grace’s. It wasn’t, or it wasn’t all the time. It was yours sometimes too.”

Steve closed his eyes. He set his empty bottle on the tile floor, stayed hunched over with his elbows on his knees for a second. He straightened and looked at his partner. 

“Danny.” 

Danny held up a hand, which was totally unfair and he knew it. 

“Let me get this out, okay? I know this isn’t the time or the place, but I keep thinking about how you were there right away for Grace when Rachel wasn’t. And watching you with her tonight … let’s just say I think maybe I haven’t been considering the _right_ family portrait. Call it fear, call it stupidity.”

Danny reached out a hand and grabbed onto Steve’s forearm. Steve didn’t flinch. If anything, he leaned a bit closer. That was a good sign, at least, but Steve was doing a fair impression of a stunned fish otherwise. Wide eyes, mouth opening and shutting. Danny wondered, as he often had these past months, what would have happened if he’d acted on his basic instinct and jumped Steve the day they’d met. Maybe it would have been all about scratching an itch, or maybe it would have meant he never would have slept with Rachel. 

But he hadn’t jumped Steve, and eventually it became a what if in his head. A fantasy. The longer he let it go without word or action, the more he became uncertain if Steve reciprocated at all; Steve was an affectionate guy with everyone, a contradiction to his SEAL nature. Danny squeezed Steve’s arm, and that prompted a direct look at him. 

“You and that ridiculous face. I thought you were, and forgive me for this, a complication I didn’t need, but you wouldn’t go away,” Danny said. “And now Grace loves you too, so. So much for avoiding complication.”

“Danny,” Steve said again. He traced his finger along the gauze on Danny’s wrist.

 _In for a penny_ , Danny thought.

“Thing is, I know how it ends with Rachel. I can be all pie in the sky, but the reasons we didn’t work are still there. And I don’t love her, not like that anymore. I’m not saying I think you and I are all tra-la-la unicorns and traipsing off into the sunset, but if I’m not misreading this …” Danny waved one hand between him and Steve. “… and please tell me if I am, I’d like to give a shot to something not preordained to fail.”

Steve didn’t say anything, but he wrapped his fingers around Danny’s wrist. He seemed overwhelmed, to be honest, and at a loss for words in the face of the sheer number of them coming out of Danny. He almost pulled away, but then Steve moved. It wasn’t sudden and sure like Danny would have expected, but cautious. His heart started pounding, because it looked like Steve was going to kiss him and he wanted that. He wanted to know Steve’s mouth on his.

“Danno, the movie’s almost over and I’m tired,” Grace said.

Startled nearly out of his chair, Steve let go of Danny’s wrist and jumped to his feet. Well, if that had been a moment, it was over. 

Danny also stood and stretched, pretended they hadn’t been about to take the first step toward something more. He shot Steve a sheepish look and received a slightly dopey head bob in return.

“Go get your stuff, Monkey. You’ve got school in the morning,” Danny said.

“Aw, but…”

“You’ve had three days off this week. You’re going, or your mom’ll kill me.”

“Okay.”

“She’s an amazing kid,” Steve said softly as Grace went inside.

“Preaching to the choir, man.” Danny stood close, their arms touching. “Rachel told me you stuck with Grace, before. That day.”

“What else was I gonna do? She’s your kid and she was upset.”

“Mmm, thanks.” 

Danny didn’t say anything else for a minute, during which the sound of Grace’s offkey singing could be heard. He smiled, but it fell away quickly when he thought of Grace holding onto him for dear life, like he’d up and disappear on her again. He slid Steve a sidelong glance. 

“So, you get the bastards? I don’t want details right now, just … you got them, right?”

“Of course.” Steve bumped his elbow into Danny’s arm, and sounded like there was more to that simple answer. “Suffice it to say, they won’t cause any more problems.”

“Tell me you didn’t string them up by their toenails out in the jungle somewhere.”

“Nah, I shipped them to the gulag,” Steve said with a laugh, “but the toenails thing, I’ll have to remember that.”

Danny ignored the little flip his stomach gave when Steve poked him in the ribs and gave him a huge smile. Now wasn’t the time, but it was going to happen. Knowing that set his nerves on edge and relaxed them at the same time. Steve helped Danny retrieve the dishware and stuff from the kitchen and then they were at the door saying good night and he didn’t actually want to go. Responsible parenthood was a necessary evil sometimes.

Grace gave Steve a big hug, and it was a beautiful sight to see. Danny wasn’t sure exactly what they were supposed to do now, feeling suddenly awkward and strange. He stuck out his hand and knew it was the wrong thing to do when Steve blinked at it a few times before he actually took it and shook it. There was time, he reminded himself, for this to stop being weird. 

“Ah, well. Good night,” Danny mumbled and frogmarched Grace out to the car.

“Bye, Uncle Steve,” Grace shouted as she and Danny made it to the passenger door.

That was when he realized Steve was actually standing there watching them. Danny got Grace situated and made sure the seatbelt was securely fastened, then backed out. He turned to give Steve a wave, but caught the guy checking out his ass. A rush of blood flooded his face, and another more delicate region. He … Grace was right there. Jesus. The Father of the Year Award was his, for sure, and even knowing how inappropriate this was, he couldn’t leave yet. He needed to make sure Steve understood exactly what he’d meant, before. The door closed, shutting Steve in and Danny out and nope, that would not do.

“I’ll be right back, Monkey, okay?” Danny said softly. 

“‘kay, Daddy,” she said, half asleep.

He didn’t knock this time, just flung open the door of the McGarrett home. Steve stood there, a foot from the bottom of the stairs. Danny squared his shoulders and gave Steve what he hoped was a confident look.

“I need you to know something before I go,” Danny said.

Then launched himself at Steve with so much force he stumbled a few steps back and fell onto the stairs. Steve didn’t have time to adjust to the new position or time to do anything, because Danny was _straddling_ him and somewhere deep inside Danny was both embarrassed by the inappropriateness of the move and exhilarated by it.

“What?” Steve asked, which was fairly ridiculous and very Steve. 

Danny brushed his lips against Steve’s, careful at first but he moved quickly when Steve opened his mouth without hesitation. The kiss went from nervous to clumsy to something not bad at all for their first, somehow hot and sweet at the same time. Steve’s hands automatically went to Danny’s waist to shift him slightly into a more comfortable, sustainable position before roaming down to pull them closer together. Sadly, the very obvious physical evidence of their mutual enjoyment was what made Danny remember sustainable wasn’t in the cards. That was the major flaw in this plan. 

Steve moaned when Danny pulled back and climbed off, then moaned again as he stared at Danny’s lips and touched his own with a slightly shaky hand. He looked gobsmacked and wore it well. 

“Oh. Good, that was … right, yeah. At the very least, the barest of minimums, we are going to start fucking. A lot,” Danny said, then cleared his throat and thumbed toward the door. “Ah, but I’m going to … Grace is waiting.” 

His dick was throbbing in time with his heart and he hoped like holy hell Grace was sleeping. He was not in the proper headspace to explain erections to his little girl. Not that he ever would be, but he’d prefer it to not be his own hard-on that prompted the discussion. The hard-on was never going to subside as long as he stood there, unless they fit in a quickie against the door while his kid was out in the car, and no. That took care of that, at least for him.

“Governor gave us tomorrow off,” Steve said before Danny could take a step, sounding ragged and about as wrecked as Danny felt.

“I’ll come over.”

Danny considered that a promise. He planted another kiss on Steve to make sure that was known too, because Steve was show to his tell and he could learn how to do that. Then he made his way out to the Camaro on slightly unsteady legs, not at all surprised to see Steve once again stood at the door and stayed there to watch him go. 

With the taste of Steve on his lips, Danny drove to his apartment. It wasn’t home to him, he’d never called it that. He was looking forward to doing more than kissing with Steve. He was also looking forward to figuring out if maybe Steve was part of his real home, his family. His and Grace’s. He couldn’t wipe the smile off of his face if he tried.

H50H50H50

_Epilogue_

The plane reeked. Passengers had been loaded on an hour ago, and the air was stale with the mingled odors of perfume, sweat, oily hair and food brought on board for consumption later. In the rear of the plane, two men looked very unhappy to be on board. Their seatmate, a very chatty elderly lady named Yvonne, tried to coax them into conversation periodically by talking about her grandchildren, the horrendous price of food in the airport, and the itinerary of the whale-watching cruise she was heading to with her friend Dorothea, who was tragically seated far away at the center of the plane. The more she tried to talk, the more pissed off the men looked. 

_“Welcome again aboard Flight AA5670 to Anchorage, Alaska,”_ a man’s tinny voice pumped into the crowded coach cabin at last. _“We have word that the mechanical issues have been resolved and we are ready to taxi. Once we’re airborne, flight time is estimated to be six hours, forty-five minutes, and the skies look clear so we should be on target for that.”_

“I still can’t believe this is happening,” the stouter of the two men said. 

“Neither can I, but it is. Alaska? Jesus, our caseload will involve bears, I just know it. Moose, maybe,” the other said.

“I blame you for this, Kipton.”

“It worked, Markowitz. It was a clean op. No one could have ever pinned it on us,” Kipton hissed. “We were so close at regaining our footing on the Cali case, redeeming ourselves. I just don’t understand this, but it can’t be coincidental.”

“Stuff it,” Markowitz said. “We’re about to be able to see Russia from our houses. We came close to nothing, and face it, we never will again. We screwed the pooch with this one. I told you it was a bad idea. Alaska, for fuck’s sake. I’m going to be stuck in the middle of nowhere forever.”

FBI Special Agent Edward Kipton let out an angry huff and sullenly looked out the window as the plane finally began to back away from the gate. There was no justice in the world, he thought, none at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, [the ringtone exists.](http://www.mytinyphone.com/ringtone/202370/)


End file.
